La. Nonprofit Association’s New Chief Focuses on Growth

In the wake of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005, nonprofit organizations in the Gulf Coast played a vital role in recovery efforts. Yet the organizations themselves have needed support and rebuilding. In some cities, they lost facilities and staff members. In other cities, massive population shifts created spikes in demand for services that overwhelmed nonprofit groups.

To help charities prepare for the future, the Louisiana Association of Nonprofit Organizations, an umbrella group in Baton Rouge, embarked on a new strategic plan after the hurricanes. In June, it hired Sister Melanie Guste, a Catholic nun in the Society of the Sacred Heart order, as chief executive to make that plan succeed over the long term.

The association, which provides leadership, training, and advocacy for the state’s nonprofit organizations, began expanding in 2006 from a single Baton Rouge office to four more cities across the state: Lake Charles, Mandeville, New Orleans, and Shreveport. The number of employees more than tripled.

“Melanie has the human and organizational-systems skills to make those branches self-sustaining,” says Greg Cotter, the association’s board chairman.

The organization would not reveal what its leader will be paid in her new job.

Sister Guste, 55, has served as the association’s senior consultant for the past two years, working on strategic planning and training. As a seventh-generation Louisianan, she brings to her new role deep community roots, a keen understanding of state politics, and a spiritual commitment to service that started at a young age.

At 13, she began helping with the religious instruction of young children at St. John the Baptist, a church in a poor area of New Orleans. The children’s poverty deeply affected her. “It changed me in a way that never left me,” she says.

She also was immersed in politics at a very young age: Her father served as a state senator and state attorney general. She helped him campaign, distributing leaflets and driving a truck equipped with a loudspeaker to spread the word.

“It is corny, but it is the backbone of grass-roots political action,” she says. “It has shaped my own advocacy and belief in the political process.”

In her mid-20s, she joined the Society of the Sacred Heart, an international religious order. The order emphasizes social justice, a goal that still shapes and directs her everyday work with nonprofit groups, she says.

In the mid-1980s, she taught in the Philippines, traveling to remote, rural villages. There she first learned about microbusinesses, which were then called “cottage industries”: She recalled one village where community members built cane furniture, exporting it worldwide and seeing the business raise the entire community’s standard of living.

Returning to Louisiana in 1992, Sister Guste saw people still in what she calls the “garrote-hold” of poverty. She committed to study microbusiness as a solution. She helped start the Microenterprise Development Alliance of Louisiana to promote the concept.

She has held several jobs with the state of Louisiana, including director of the state’s Learn and Serve America program, a federal effort that seeks to encourage community service by schoolchildren, and director of the CareerNET Workforce Development Network, which established 25 career centers. Both programs required building new statewide networks. Those jobs helped develop the skills she will draw on to give staying power to the new statewide branch system of the Louisiana Association of Nonprofit Organizations.

In an interview, Sister Guste discussed her new position.

What is the state of Louisiana’s charities?

Nonprofits continue to be challenged after the storms. The senior staff of many front-line organizations during those catastrophes are frequently still in place, although we have seen some shift. They are tired, to be perfectly frank. We have seen the influx of young and inexperienced staff. There are funding issues. There is obviously an increase in the amount of services the nonprofits provide and at the same time fewer and strained resources to respond to that need.

What are the nonprofit world’s biggest successes since the storms?

Its use of volunteers. The use of volunteers is a tremendous testimony to the capacity nonprofits have to receive and use, capture and mobilize, the philanthropic impulse of individuals — not only within Louisiana, but from way beyond its boundaries. Volunteers continue to come to Louisiana and continue to serve. They have been a large part of the recovery and the success of nonprofits.

Another example is in education. There are many new charter schools in New Orleans established as part of the recovery. Many have been established by nonprofit organizations, and parent groups have been established to affiliate with those charter schools. This kind of collaboration and innovation, I believe, ultimately will lead public education to greater success than it has had in the past.

What’s been the biggest challenge?

The issue of human resources — identifying, recruiting, retaining human resources. There continues to be a lot of job mobility. Newcomers come and then move on to other positions. There is a good deal of competition in the market. Retaining quality employees remains challenging.

How have the storms affected Louisiana nonprofit groups’ relationship with government?

We saw, and the world saw, that nonprofit organizations were among the first, along with individuals, to respond to the catastrophe. We saw also that the government was tediously slow. I believe that very fact points to the need for strengthening the relationship between the government and the nonprofit sector.

Has it changed in three years?

Nonprofits have learned to take a stronger leadership role in their communities. They are assuming a place at the table in terms of rebuilding neighborhoods, in terms of decision making, in terms of their relationships with government. And government, for its part, has included nonprofits at the table. We saw that during the storms. Obviously, I hope that continues.

What is the state of philanthropy in Louisiana: burned out or sustaining?

My vote is sustaining. In spite of the fact that we have few homegrown philanthropists, our philanthropic giving is turning its face toward creating very innovative, strategic, and more organized philanthropy.

For instance, the Baton Rouge Area Foundation created the Center for Planning Excellence. It is working toward comprehensive land-use policy and systemic strategies for improving the whole region. We still are the recipients of philanthropies outside of the state. It is important that this type of giving continue.

What stamp would you like to make on the Louisiana Association of Nonprofit Organizations?

I want to see a wider diversity of members, diversity not just in the types of organizations represented but the size. I would like to see more diversity in terms of economic-development organizations like the Chambers [of Commerce], in terms of health institutions like the larger hospitals, and of the faith-based organizations and schools.

Also, I want to build on the bench strength LANO already has in public policy.

What disaster-preparation advice do you have for other nonprofit organizations?

We have learned that there needs to be a continuity-of-operations plan in place at all times for nonprofits. The sector itself needs to have a critical system of response in place to mitigate those disasters so nonprofit organizations can serve their clients more effectively.